Dispatch from the Front Lines: Blowing up the country would be unwise at present
Hostages go home. State of the Liberal leadership. A new era in America. And more.
Well, that was quite the week. And we’ve got a busy week to come, too. Lots of talk about!
Something we want to acknowledge at the top is the release today of three Israeli hostages who had been held since October 7th. This is a developing story at the time we are preparing this dispatch so we won’t offer any substantive thoughts. But it is wonderful to know these young women will be reunited with their families soon. We hope for many more scenes and that these women live long, happy and very safe lives from this day forward.
For matters closer to home, check out our thoughts on the week that was by settling in for our latest The Line Podcast.
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And now, with our pro forma grovelling out of the way, on with the dispatch.
We at The Line admit that we were somewhat surprised to see so many of our friends in Ontario find themselves unwittingly in support of Premier Doug Ford, who, in the face of an absolute vacuum of federal leadership, has taken up the role of Captain of Team Canada.
Last week, he led the premiers in a statement essentially promising that everything would be on the table in a trade war with the U.S. Everything and especially tariffs and maybe even an embargo on oil and gas.
A weary and prideful nation, happy to see someone stand up to Donald Trump, was elated. Ford always did know how to make the popular play.
Popular, except, however, in Alberta. One premier would not sign the statement. Danielle Smith. A choice that had her rebuked by both Ford and Justin Trudeau for putting her province above “Team Canada.”
We understand that we’re at the “The Boys Will be Home by Christmas” stage of the coming trade war, and far be it from us to interfere in any effort to build morale or gin up the troops. We understand the need to put on a front in the face of a potentially economically existential threat. But, the thing is guys, Danielle Smith is absolutely correct. She was unequivocally correct not to sign that document. Tariffs might be one thing, depending on the circumstances and conditions, but if the federal government actually goes forward with an idea as extreme and misguided as an oil embargo, they’re going to tear the country apart.
So, everyone, we need you all to calm down. We need you to stop thinking with your balls, and start using your heads. We understand Canada’s need to retaliate against tariffs, but those threats have to be real. They can’t be bluffs. They have to be impactful, proportional, and sane.
Let’s start with the moral problem with last week’s announcement. Ford et al. are talking a great game about making sacrifices and Team Canada and all that — but the sacrifices actually being demanded are all to fall on one province and one industry in particular — Alberta and oil, respectively. Which just so happens to be the industry that has been the political kicking horse of a Confederation that has been hell bent on landlocking the province’s primary product for the last ten years. How convenient!
If Ford wanted to build real consensus on punitive embargoes and tariffs, he could have started by volunteering one of his own. If Team Canada is really willing to put everything on the table, start with placing an embargo on auto part sales to the U.S., Ontario. Or Hydro electric exports, Quebec. Feel free to close the fisheries, Atlantic Canada. Stop shipments of potash, Saskatchewan. Cut all trade in lumber and mining, B.C.
Come on, guys. Step up to the plate. Let’s see that Team Canada spirit! Whee!
Oh wait, did it suddenly get real quiet in the room? Is everything not actually on the table, all of the sudden? Of course it isn’t. By “everything” you all meant one thing — the one thing you know will hurt the Americans, and that you’ve never actually liked anyway. And if shutting it down brings the yappy Albertans down a peg, all the better.
“Team Canada,” indeed.
The other problem is simply that Canada can’t practically shut the oil off. It’s a fundamentally different kind of commodity than lumber or potash. If we shut down trade in things like lentils or nickel for a few weeks, the railroads and trucks that carry those products don’t disappear. We can re-open the border and those supply chains will heal.
Oil and gas are more complicated. Alberta’s low-grade crude travels via pipelines (and rail lines) through a fully integrated energy market to mega refineries in the U.S. that have been built, specifically, to refine it. Export taxes are one thing, but if we fully shut the border — if Canada cannot be trusted to supply crude in that integrated market, which would be how the move would be interpreted by the U.S. oil giants — we risk those U.S. energy companies responding by re-jigging their energy infrastructure to effectively cut Canada’s product out of their supply chain in favour of domestic and international product that arrives by sea.
Would doing so jack up the price of gas for American consumers? Yeah, of course. But the U.S. actually can meet its own oil needs domestically, if it has to. If multi-billion dollar investments to that end are made — and the U.S. absolutely does have the capacity to make them — we risk shutting ourselves out of U.S. energy infrastructure altogether and indefinitely.
And it gets better.
Because we have such an integrated system, eastern Canada is supplied with energy in part via a pipeline that leaves Canada, enters the U.S., and then comes back into the country. That means imposing even a tariff risks double-tariffing oil heading back into Ontario. We can only hurt our neighbours by hurting ourselves more.
Oh, and remember that aforementioned decade-long campaign to landlock Alberta’s oil? Well, even if these fantasies come to pass, and Canada does shut the border to Alberta’s oil, forcing the province to sell its product domestically — a policy that absolutely coincidentally looks identical to the National Energy Program, ahem — we’ve got some bad news about highly contentious energy infrastructure within Canada. This country doesn’t have the pipelines or refining capacity to meet domestic fuel needs at present. Nor do we have the economic capacity, will, or dynamism to make any of that appear on short notice. If you stop the oil going out and the Americans retaliate by stopping the oil from coming in, central Canada is going to run short of fuel. And quickly. You absolute numbnuts.
Making matters worse, Smith has warned that an export ban risks a national unity crisis, to which we respond: “yeah, duh. Of course it will.” We mean, Jesus, what do you all think Alberta’s going to do if you tell it, and it alone, to commit economic suicide on the off chance that doing so would demonstrate a show of strength for “Team Canada”? The province will have a referendum of secession on the table within a week. (Which, of course, Alberta is legally entitled to do. Thanks Quebec!)
But we don’t even want to dwell on this point because we think sooner or later the sort of brilliant minds field testing this plan are going to realize that shutting down oil is like showing up to a Fox News broadcast wearing a rubber Donald Trump mask and shooting yourself in the head on live TV. Whatever harm it causes the U.S. is far outweighed by the existential damage to the self.
Just stop.